Urban Stoicism and Culinarism

Urban Stoicism is neither an ideology nor a religion. It is not a system in which self-invented concepts are forced, piece by piece, with pretense, to conform to reality (and if not, then, as in the Procrustean bed, the excess reality is denied or additional words are invented).

   Classical Stoicism and Urban Stoicism are languages that are excellent for talking about everyday issues, and especially about what you are responsible for.

   One thing that is clearly your responsibility is the taste of food in your mouth. I decide what I like and what I don't like. I give myself permission to enjoy, devour, appreciate or dislike food. Taste preferences are also changing and evolving, perhaps sometimes regressing.

   From a Stoastadian perspective, it is interesting to consider the importance of good tastes in relation to other values, the changing importance of good tastes over time or perhaps even historically, and the very immediate hierarchies of good tastes in one's own world of preferences.

  Moreover, not all flavours are simple. It is easy to enjoy a grilled sausage or a chicken wing, but it is many degrees more difficult to identify the characteristics of a good wine and compare them with other good wines. Wine tasting is therefore a challenging but enjoyable hobby for a Stoastadian!

   Instead, it is very odd that when a chef, who is incredibly precise, has studied gourmet cooking and knows how to make delicious top food, some jealous wooden tongues in their inferiority deny the importance of fine dining as a goal to be pursued. Why on earth? Good taste is not governed by the secular communist principle of one for all and the same for all. Individuals are responsible for their own taste preferences, their hierarchical order, their relationship with other values and any changes in their own preferences. 

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